Future
for Fairhaven:
Development Boom Molds New Face of Residents, Clientele
by Chris Huber
The drive along the newly paved Old Fairhaven Parkway sets a new atmosphere
on this crisp mid-fall afternoon – a change from the bumpy, gray
thoroughfare that is 32nd Street. The black of the recently laid asphalt
blends into the old downtown streets - some of which are still bare bricks
- and new buildings, taller than the older, simpler ones, reveal the face
of change. The clouds have parted, exposing the earth to bright, warm
rays of sunshine. But something is different here.
A quick stroll down Harris Avenue provides beautiful views of Bellingham Bay, construction fences and drivers losing their patience, creeping along, anticipating a car might back out of that precious diagonal curbside parking slot just five steps from the brand new Village Books building. Finally, an opening.
Loren Rasmussen from Juneau, Alaska, rests on a sidewalk bench waiting for his wife, Carolyn, and admires the nice new condominiums on 11th Street and Harris Avenue.
Rasmussen, a retiree from the Alaska Department of Transportation, says he has visited Fairhaven nearly a half-dozen times and notices some of the changes the area has gone through.
“For one thing, it’s really revived,” Rasmussen says.
Tourists wander the streets looking for the next cute little locally owned shop to spend all of their money in – luckily they stayed in a hotel they can walk to.
Locals drive the streets looking for he next open parking space – unfortunately they live far away from Fairhaven.
He adds that there seem to be more upscale dining venues than the last time he visited, and that none of the businesses occupy their rooms on the top floor anymore.
As Rasmussen holds up his camera, pausing a quick moment to frame the picture of someone on the sidewalk in front of the old bank, he says he notices a busier air about the weekend-shopper haven.
“You don’t see the upstairs being utilized anymore,” Rasmussen says about how many of the local land owners used to actually live in the top floors of their own buildings.
In 1994 the City of Bellingham created a parking district to maintain and control parking issues in Fairhaven during the beginning stages of the recent development boom. Since then, many residents and local business owners have become leery about the increasing amount of traffic and parking problems for local town goers and business owners. This may be due to the nearly two buildings being built every year in Fairhaven.
Juneau, AK resident Loren Rasmussen waits for his wife on a bench outside of the old bank on 12th Street and Harris Avenue.
A brief walk from the corner of 12th and Harris, the Colophon Café renders its history and tradition – and maybe a cool drink or snack – to those who need a break from the mid-afternoon stroll. A glance through the open front door and sunlight glistens off the windshield of a car, which pokes sluggishly along 11th Street, the driver searching for a slot close to their desired shopping destination. No luck here.
“You use your lunch break just looking for a (parking) spot,” says Michael Golden, an employee at the Colophon Café, next door to Village Books.
Golden says employees are supposed to offer up the best front space for customers. Nevertheless, it is difficult enough for customers of the Colophon Cafe to find space on 11th Street because customers of other businesses park there.
In spite of parking frustrations, Bellingham City Planner Jackie Lynch offers that all businesses in Fairhaven actually have an advantage when customers park far away.
“If they really want to go to your business, they will walk to your business,” she says. “If you’re a bead fanatic, you don’t have any choice.”
When the parking district was formed, the city decided that creating angled curbside parking would work better than using vacant lots, Lynch says. She says large parking lots don’t look as nice in a downtown area, and that angled slots slow traffic to a safe speed.
“I’m not really sympathetic toward people who complain about traffic,” Lynch says.
She says the city has no money to sufficiently supplement the need for parking spaces. The city is only allowed to raise taxes one percent per year. Tax revenue helps supplement the cost of development, but the costs of building and creating public parking spaces greatly outweigh the annual income allotted.
So, why the big boom in commercial-residential buildings?
The answer, Lynch says, is low interest rates and changing migration patterns of retirees. Bellingham and Fairhaven are now fashionable places to retire.
She says the trends have shifted to the Northwest and, while major landowners in the Fairhaven area are selling off their land, banks are becoming more comfortable loaning money for commercial-residential projects.
Developers like Troy Muljat and Ken Imus have the money to construct places like Harris Square and have money to do more, Lynch says.
In his cozy second-floor office, perched right above 11th Street in the old bank building, across from Skylark’s Café, developer Ken Imus sits at a round table sifting through photographs of old Fairhaven properties he has rebuilt since the 1970s.
The morning sun creeps over the sill and through the half-circle window. Maps of Bellingham decorate the bare-brick walls, and dozens of rolled-up blueprints lie in piles on a desk across the room.
“There’s plenty for all of us here,” Imus says. —>
Copyright © 2005 Western Washington University